Great Western Railway (GWR)

Great Western Railway (GWR) is a rail operating company operated by FirstGroup PLC. GWR operates long-distance inter-city services along the Great Western Main Line to and from the West of England and South Wales, inter-city services from London to the West Country via the Reading–Taunton line, and the Night Riviera sleeper service between London and Penzance. It also provides commuter and outer-suburban services from its London terminus at Paddington to West London, the Thames Valley region including parts of Berkshire, parts of Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire; and regional services throughout the West of England and South Wales to the South coast of England. Great Western Railway also provides and maintains the Electrostar Class 387 fleet for Heathrow Express.

We were contacted in early 2020, immediately prior to the end of GWR’s existing DA2 contract to provide assistance in relation to a further Commercial Change (DA2 Change 2) negotiation to the existing DA2 contract as a result of a number of changes to the original contract assumptions, including but not limited to further delays to electrification, timetable delays and the introduction of new services, for example the Heathrow Express Services now being operated by GWR.

This was an extremely complex project involving a relatively small team of existing GWR staff, First Group employees and external consultants including AMC. Initially, we were contracted to produce a financial model for the Change including an updated record of assumptions for submission to the DfT. Following submission in November 2020, a detailed negotiation commenced and is ongoing at the time of writing. AMC were retained throughout this period to provide clarification to the DfT with regards to the modelled assumptions made as well as overall commercial project management support with regards to the wider submission.

This project has proved extremely interesting and challenging for AMC, covering almost all parts of the submission in some capacity including Financial, Operational, Commercial as well as general Project Management. It has most notably been the only project we have carried out entirely ‘from home’ given the challenges presented to us by the Covid 19 pandemic. We have particularly enjoyed working with GWR’s extremely motivated, knowledgeable, dedicated and ‘easy to work’ with staff on this project and hope in the future to again be involved in the shaping of future contracts, in whatever form these might present themselves following the extensive overhaul of rail franchising in the UK.